Optimism from an island president

Movie Reviews
I find it frustrating that human beings perpetuate destructive behaviors until they’re faced with death or worse fates. We don’t floss until we’ve had cavities; we don’t eat healthy or exercise until we...

Damsels in Distress is ever so slight

Movie Reviews
Writer-director Whit Stillman is back. We could debate over whether he was missed, but rest assured, after his 13-year break following the underwhelming The Last Days of Disco, he remains singularly Stillmanesq...

The Raven tells an all too familiar tale

Movie Reviews
The Raven is in trouble before the first thinly drawn character appears on screen. The audience is informed, via title card, that in the days before his death, Edgar Allan Poe was mumbling incoherently on ...

The Dardenne Brothers lighten up

Movie Reviews
The Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (L’enfant, Rosetta), who stumbled a bit with their last film, Lorna’s Silence, have made a winning comeback in The Kid with a Bike, a coming-of-age tale abo...

A viral cult film’s hidden right-wing agenda

Movie Reviews
Thrive, a two-hour documentary that screens Friday at the Performance Space in La Tienda, sells itself as an optimistic vision of a utopian future marked by “free energy,” freedom from oppression and spirit...

Taika Waititi’s Boy is slight, charming and fun

Movie Reviews
It’s 1984. Our hero is Boy (James Rolleston), a plucky kid living in an isolated New Zealand town with his younger brother, Rocky (Te Aho Eketone-Whitu), four younger cousins and their grandmother, who cares ...

WE's two stories still don't make a full film

Movie Reviews
Watching WE, Madonna’s latest terrible directing effort, it’s difficult to know exactly for what she was striving. An old-fashioned romance? A softhearted take on Wallis Simpson, a woman with whom she clear...

In Darkness exploits Holocaust for effect

Movie Reviews
Here’s the danger with Holocaust dramas: At some point, they run the potential of departing from themes of war, human suffering and triumph in the face of adversity, and tipping into standard horror fare.